U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service targets non-depredating wolves
for trapping and removal from wild

Agency disregards scientific consensus that lobos must be
allowed to roam

Fresh on the heels of its efforts to kill two uncollared,
possibly wild-born Mexican gray wolves, the Fish and Wildlife Service
of the U.S. Department of the Interior is trapping for the largest pack
of Mexican wolves in the wild.

Unlike the two uncollared animals, who so far have
escaped due to vast and rugged terrain, their native wariness and winter
weather, the seven-member Francisco Pack is not known to have killed any
cattle.

Rather, the Francisco Pack, consisting of two adults
and five wild-born pups, is targeted for wandering outside of the official
boundaries of the Mexican gray wolf recovery area.

Only 36 Mexican wolves can be confirmed in the wild,
and nine of them  one quarter of the entire population  have
been condemned by the government to be killed or captured.

The Mexican gray wolf is considered the most imperiled
mammal in North America, exterminated from the southwestern United States
by the Fish and Wildlife Service and its predecessor agency and only saved
after passage of the 1973 Endangered Species Act by the capture alive
of the last five known wild animals from Mexico, between 1977 and 1980.
These last animals, plus two already in captivity, served as the basis
for an emergency captive breeding program. Reintroduction of captive-born
wolves began in 1998.

The decision to trap out the Francisco Pack results
from the Fish and Wildlife Service's ignoring the recommendations of a
team of independent scientists who urged allowing wolves to roam outside
of the arbitrary boundaries of the Mexican wolf recovery area, which consists
of the Apache and Gila National Forests.

The June, 2001, Paquet Report, named for Canadian biologist
Paul C. Paquet, Ph.D., who led a team of four independent scientists,
was the biological component of the Fish and Wildlife Service's three
year evaluation of the Mexican wolf reintroduction program. The 86-page
report was conducted by the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, which
contracted with Dr. Paquet and his colleagues to evaluate the program.

The Paquet Report recommended: "Immediately modify
the final rule to allow wolves that are not management problems to establish
territories outside the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area."

The report added: "Retrieving animals because
they wander outside the primary recovery area is inappropriate because
it is inconsistent with the Service's approach to recover wolves in the
southeast, Great Lakes states, and the northern Rockies [and] . . . needlessly
excludes habitat that could substantially contribute to recovery of Canis
lupus baileyi" (p. 66).
Despite numerous public statements that the Fish and Wildlife Service
would act on its three year review, that recommendation and others in
the report have been disregarded by the agency.

Wolves have been injured and killed in recapture attempts
in the past. Stress from the trapping of the Pipestem Pack in the late
summer of 1999 led to the death by Parvovirus of three of their five wild-born
pups, according to a September 5, 1999 analysis by recovery team consulting
veterinarian Bret S. Snyder, who necropsied the pups.

In addition, the alpha female of the Mule Pack lost
her leg on January 23, 2000 as a result of frostbite suffered while in
a government trap. A male of the Wildcat Pack died from exhaustion and
stress on November 9, 2001 as a result of an aerial chase to capture him.
Like the Francisco Pack, neither animal had attacked domestic animals.

The Paquet Report stresses the urgency of allowing
wolves to roam free: "We conclude that some wolves have successfully
established home ranges and possibly pack territories within the designated
wolf recovery area. We caution, however, that frequent recaptures and
re-releases confounded our analysis. These manipulations may also be interfering
with pack formation and establishment and maintenance of home ranges.
Lastly, individual wolves have shown some indication of dispersing outside
the recovery areas. This is to be expected and required if the regional
population is to be viable." (p. 23)
The two uncollared wolves condemned to death by the Fish and Wildlife
Service have gained a reprieve due to snow, with the temporary withdrawal
of the hunters assigned to them. However, they still may be shot on sight
by the trappers assigned to remove the Francisco Pack. Interior Secretary
Gale Norton has not responded to a December 5, 2002 request by fifteen
conservation, religious and animal protection groups that the kill order
be rescinded.

There had been 37 wolves known in the wild until recently,
but on December 3, 2002 a female wolf from the Saddle Pack in Arizona
was found dead and is suspected of having been shot. Illegal shootings
and hit and run vehicular collisions are responsible for twelve known
deaths of Mexican wolves. The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Center
for Biological Diversity are offering a standing reward totaling $15,000
for information leading to the arrest and conviction of wolf poachers.

Michael J. Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity's
office in Pinos Altos, New Mexico stated: "Gale Norton's Interior
Department is removing Mexican wolves at a rate that jeopardizes the population."
He added: "The Francisco Pack can't read maps drawn by politicians.
Biologists say the lobos need freedom to roam if they are to survive,
reproduce and raise pups."